Explorations in Strategy - Italy at War

quetzilla: True but you can make some certain assumptions, the major one being that one of the landings will be near a port, to secure uninterrupted supply. In Turkey's case, this means either Istanbul or Eregli as Turkey has no other ports. Now I did fight for Istanbul, but I didn't have to fight around Istanbul at all. Perhaps the AI can be improved to defend areas around important points rather than just important points, dunno. What BlitzMartinDK said.

BlitzMartinDK: Hehe yes, precisely.

slugo: I'm not really developing my air force at all, except technologically to some extent. At the moment, the air force just too inconvenient to really use and I got into the habit of not using it in HoI2 either.

I'll try to have an update for tonight, but no guarantees as I'll be pretty busy! But you won't be so you guys can all go vote in the ACAs!

Beppo: Of course, the question that comes to mind is, why would I start a losing fight?

Update coming up!

The Year of Aggression
Part 12: Technology and Procurement, July – December, 1939

As usual, the latter six months of 1939 brought Italy much technological and conceptual advancement. Italy’s projects continued to broaden as the army received a greater share of doctrinal improvement, even though technologically it was yet to feel any increase in budget. The air force was, as usual, the most neglected arm of the armed forces.

For some reason, the Yugoslav campaign of July through September coincided with a large amount of technological and conceptual advance in Italy. The first admittedly took place just before the campaign began, on the 17th Cantieri advanced Italian aircraft carrier armor yet again. Having attained the hypothetical 1940 standard for such armor, Mussolini decided that this was sufficient for the moment and instead ordered a study of combat medicine. On the 12th of August, Cantieri completed their contract for an advanced aircraft carrier engine; they received a contract to develop modular large warship radar. Again, Cantieri completed a contract on aircraft carrier hangars, which was replaced by a contract for small warship radar development. On September 9th, the air-launched torpedo project was successfully completed, and Mussolini ordered another study of civil defense. This was quickly followed, on the 16th, by an improvement in Italian decryption machines and a new study on first aid. This period of war, with Yugoslavia, ends with two final improvements: improvement to Italian encryption and to their supply production, both on the 20th. These two contracts were replaced, respectively, by agricultural development and further educational improvements.


The research achievements at the end of the Yugoslav campaign.

With the start of the Turkish campaign came a handful more of improvements. First, on the 21st a mechanical computing machine was successfully introduced into the research workplace, increasing research speed by a minor extent. Mussolini then ordered aircraft carrier engines to be improved again, awarding another contract to Cantieri. Next, interestingly, came another contract for Cantieri for improved aircraft carrier armor. Mussolini intentionally increased resources in the research field to allow for another project, back to the earlier number of thirteen simultaneous fully-funded projects; this occurred on the 23rd. He felt confident that the resource increase due to the conquest of Yugoslavia and the future conquest of Turkey would allow for such extravagance. On October 2nd, the general staff completed another study on infantry warfare, a project which Mussolini extended yet again. On the 4th, the prolific general staff presented another study, on the operational level of warfare. Mussolini did not renew this study but instead ordered one on handling large fronts.


Another improvement in Italian doctrine at the operational level of war.

On the 28th, Cantieri concluded development of aircraft carrier anti-aircraft armament. Afterwards, the general staff received orders for another study, this one on mass assault. On the 30th, Italian combat medicine was advanced, and Mussolini ordered this project continue. The main centerpiece was, until mid-December, Italian production. In May, Mussolini ordered a massive radar station and listening post constructed at Cartagena, and soon after ordered from Cantieri another four light cruisers, two series of two. In early December, with Turkey secure, he also ordered another massive radar station and listening post constructed at Istanbul. His aim here was what in today’s terms may be called information dominance. While quite willing to engage in warfare without knowing all, much or even arguably enough, about the enemy he understood the value of good intelligence and accurate information. These two posts would cover most of the Mediterranean, if not all of it, as well as Spain, part of the Atlantic, and the Black Sea and Soviet Black Sea coast.


Italian procurement as of mid-December; not shown is the ongoing project to create a naval base at Estepona.

As a last gasp for the year, a number of technologies were completed in December. Italian industrial efficiency was improved yet again on the 11th, and Cantieri finally got another contract, for improving aircraft carrier hangars. On the 28th of December, first aid knowledge advanced in the Regio Esercito as more soldiers were taught it. A day later, Cantieri completed their work on large warship radar. Both these projects were continued. On the 31st, small warship radar work was completed by Cantieri, a contract which Mussolini also extended. Finally, on the 1st of January, Italy’s agriculture improved again. Mussolini ordered this improvement to continue.


The completion of large warship radar by Cantieri.

As can be seen, Mussolini fully understood the importance of radar and knew that once it was installed upon warships, those very same ships would increase in their efficiency at destroying other, hostile, ships. Furthermore, it is easy to see a greater focus than ever before on land warfare, with the constant studies and projects relating to doctrine, medicine, first aid and even agriculture, which freed up manpower to join the military. Mussolini was still neglecting air power to some extent, but this was to begin changing with the new year.

Enewald: Maybe about .5 between the two of them. Don't quite remember.

Maj. von Mauser: Yep, certainly a pretty good pace I think.

Go, vote in the ACAs! Only a few more days left before it closes!

Pier: First targets are obviously Gibraltar and Suez. After that, we'll see. As for timing, I won't divulge yet.

I won't have an update tomorrow as it will be an extraordinarily busy day, what with research in the morning, a General Dynamics seminar on the value of technology in COIN and CT in the early afternoon, and a class in the late afternoon. Update will come Thursday evening at earliest. Also, go vote!

Stuyvesant: No garrisons. Fortune favors the bold, after all.

BlitzMartinDK: Annexation. This is basically the same as the harshest collaboration government. I don't really have any choice, as Turkey and Yugoslavia surrendered.

Baltasar: Maybe...

Nikolai II: Two roads are always better than one.

I'll try to have an update for tonight, guys! Also, for those who haven't yet (and there are a lot of you! ), go vote in the ACAs!

The Year of Aggression
Part 13: Conclusion

As can be noticed immediately, 1939 was a year of upheaval in Europe. Germany instigated a nearly pan-European war and, by the end of 1939, was well on the way to winning it. Poland had fallen, the Low Countries overrun and France violated. The Soviet Union had taken advantage of this bewildering smokescreen of aggression to consume the smaller states on its borders, such as the Baltic States, and ravaged Finland during the summer months. Italy, too, acted in a similarly predatory manner. Its prey was, however, both larger and more important than any of those states that the Soviets victimized, which were, like the Soviet Union itself, only on the fringes of Europe.

Neither of the states Italy vanquished were in Europe’s heartland. Turkey was unabashedly an outsider peering in, with limited result besides a helpless alliance with Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was closer to the core of Europe, but was yet in its neglected corner. The Balkans were famously described as the powder room of Europe, apt to light off and explode at the slightest provocation into a mess that would cost millions of lives and last for years. The Balkans had subjugated the entire rest of Europe to such a crisis twenty years previously, known as the First World War, and its contemporary neglect deliberately followed from this unfortunate tendency. The greatest powers of Europe were situated away from the Balkans, they could safely ignore it. Italy, once referred to as the least of the great powers, sat across the narrow waters of the Adriatic. It could not neglect the Balkans as did the others.

Indeed, this contrast of interests worked in Italy’s favor in 1939. The façade of war in Central Europe involved or threatened the greatest of the European powers, even the Soviet Union included to some extent by its pact with Germany. The eyes of Europe, indeed of the world, were focused on the plains of northeast France. Few could or would spare an eye or an ear for the least of the great powers and its doings in a neglected, if not unimportant, corner of Europe. Mussolini had measured his odds correctly: states could and would expire in the Balkans without repercussion.

The conquest of Yugoslavia was in equal parts offensive and defensive in Mussolini’s grand strategy. Defensively, it closed the Adriatic as an avenue of attack. Italy’s east coast was now secure, the only entrance to that sea guarded by Italian naval bases on both sides. Offensively, Yugoslavia was the heart of the Balkans. Its borders were contiguous with those of every other Balkan state. It was the perfect place from which to expand further. In addition, raison d’etat also played its part in Mussolini’s thought. The conquest of Yugoslavia represented an infusion of resources, both immediately from Yugoslavia’s own stockpiles and over time by the still untapped natural resources and industries of the country.

The conquest of Turkey was arguably somewhat more dubious strategically. Detractors of the campaign then and since have pointed to the border with the Soviet Union as a major worry for Italy. On the other hand, these detractors assumed an Italian-Soviet War to be inevitable. This was likely the case, but their second assumption was that Mussolini would not begin and wage it on his own terms. This was, of course, a flawed assumption. Mussolini had already begun thinking of the Soviet Union in terms of a future war, knowing full well that Hitler was likely to turn east in time. History as well as Hitler’s own writings pointed to this course of action, however flawed it might really be. As with the Allies, however, Mussolini would not participate until he was fully ready to bear the load and to emerge the victor in the end.

Having broadly refuted the main position of the detractors, it is necessary to turn to the actual strategic benefits of annexing Turkey. The first, and most obvious, is again found in raison d’etat, the question of resources. However, it was also in an advantageous position geostrategically. Turkish harbors were either protected from the vagaries of Mediterranean warfare, as Istanbul, or were directed northward into the Black Sea, as at Eregli. Istanbul was thus a safe eastern naval base, and both it and Eregli allowed for powerful projection of naval force into the Black Sea. Turkey also flanked Greece and Bulgaria, allowing for multiple directions of attack if and when the time came. Furthermore, it offered a foothold from which Mussolini could invade the Middle East should he ever decide upon doing it the hard way. Finally, Istanbul offered a very advantageous place for a massive radar station and listening post, which could cover the entire eastern Mediterranean as well as the Black Sea and a considerably portion of southeastern and eastern Europe.

In summary, while the other states of Europe tried battering each other into abject submission, Italy grew in wealth and in power. Its eye was on consolidating the Balkans as its own backyard, and on the future war with the Allies. War with the Soviet Union might come, but Mussolini knew that a war with two active fronts was lunacy. Only by deploying an inviolable shield to face the west, or defeating the Allies, would he likely feel himself free enough to look east.